TV Superstar

A couple of emails ago, I mentioned that I had some exciting news, but I couldn’t share it with yall at the time. The news is that a couple of weeks ago I got invited to participate in a local game show. By game show, I mean a real, straight-up crazy game show with slimy fish and buckets dropping things on people. Although I didn’t win much money, just $75, and I didn’t even get to participate in any of the real games, but I still had a lot of fun. And don’t worry, it looks like I’ve already been invited on to do another game show, so maybe I’ve got another chance.

One day, I was getting my bike fixed and talking to the repairman about Chinese politics. Two TV directors just happened to be driving by and they noticed me talking with the repairman. They pulled over their car and asked me if I wanted to participate in a gameshow where I could win $1000 and I needed to speak Chinese.
This email is mostly about the game and its structure, so that when yall watch it yall can try and understand.

There are 6 players, all of us foreigners (2 Atlantans, 1 Kenyan, 1 Brit, 1 German, and one Spaniard). There were main three games that we could compete in to get money, but only two people could compete in each main game. How did they choose those two games? You had to win a kind of musical chairs to compete in the main game.I didn’t win any of these, so I didn’t get to compete in any of the main games.

These games were pretty crazy. The first game had one of the contestants with two of his friends on three stairs. On each of their heads is a bucket helmet. They have to pour water in to the bucket helmet, and then pour it into the helmet of the guy on the step below him, and again into the guy with the bucket helmet below that. The final guy was to pour the water into a giant measuring cup, the team with the most water in the measuring cup won. Contestants are also made to stand in buckets of water with little fish in them that nibble on your feet. I asked them what the point of the little minnows that you stepped on was. They said, “They make the game more fun.”

The second game was on a giant treadmill. The contestant got on the treadmill, and two of his friends were down below with fishing poles and a marshmallow on the end. The friends had to take the fishing pole and dangle it in the person’s mouth so that the contestant could eat it. This is going on while the person is running on a giant treadmill that keeps speeding up (if you fall, you drop into a giant pit of playground balls). The person who eats the most marshmallows wins.

The final game has contestants carry a pole with two buckets on either end of the pole (a traditional rural carrying mechanism still used in China and Vietnam today). A friend of the contestant had to put a live fish in each bucket, a total of two fish. The contestant then had to walk across a slippery, 15-yard long trampoline. Finally, dump the fish in a bucket at the other end of the trampoline, run back and do it again. Of course, if the fish jumped out of the bucket you had to pick them up off the trampoline and put them back in your bucket, all while trying to keep balance on the soapy-trampline.

But then, once you win $100, $200, or $300 they make you gamble with it. After each of these main games, these twelve very scantily clad ladies come out, each of them carrying a small scroll. The winner of the main game takes a hula-hoop and throws it around the one of the girls and then they open the scroll. The scroll is basically like rolling a dice. Your money could be halved or doubled. You might have to give it to your opponent or an audience member. Whatever the scroll the model is holding tells you to do, you have to do it.

I’m not going to lie, it was crazy. I didn’t participate in any of the main games, but I got to be interviewed and I did kind of sing a Chinese song for the intro (lip-sing, we had tapped it earlier that day). If you watch it, I’m dressed in a golden, Chinese shirt and singing with the German dude.


Instructions:

When you go to this website, your browser may say it’s dangerous or it’s infected with malware. So far, neither I nor anyone I’ve given this to has had any problem. I think it is just an issue with the Chinese site.

Those of yall who don’t speak Chinese probably won’t notice it, but the sound does not match with the video, so when you see me say something, my voice will come about ten seconds later.

The show was about 90 minutes and online they have divided that up into 4 videos: the website below will take you to the first video, which has most of the cool stuff:

http://www.showdv.com.cn/play_j.asp?vid=60953

The other videos are not of much interest unless you speak Chinese. If you want to watch the other videos, please check out my blog for further instructions:

www.free-roaming.blogspot.com

Finally, I’ve noted the times of some points of interest in the first video:
Minute 1: Nationalistic show
Minute 2: Lee lip-singing a Chinese song with a German dude.
Minute 3-4.5 : Other contestants introduction.
Minute 8.20-10: Lee loses musical chairs.
Minute 12-14: Lee gets interviewed by the host, has to do a Chinese tongue twister.
Minute 15-22: First competition, with the bucket helmets.
Minute 22-25: Gambling the prize money.

If you watch the next video (how to find that on my blog), then you can see what the winner actually gets, but it’s hard to figure out what’s going on unless you speak Chinese.

I’ll probably write another email on this later, but until then...